Aladdin (1992)
| runtime = 90 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $28 million | gross = $504 million }}'''''Aladdin is a 1992 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Aladdin is the 31st animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and was part of the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance. The film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, and is based on the Arab-style folktale of Aladdin and the magic lamp from One Thousand and One Nights. The voice cast features Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, and Douglas Seale. Aladdin was released on November 27, 1992, to positive reviews and was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $217 million in revenue in the United States, and over $504 million worldwide. The film also won many awards, most of them for its soundtrack. Aladdin s success led to other material inspired by the film, including two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves; an animated television series; toys, video games, spin-offs, and Disney merchandise. A Broadway adaptation debuted in 2014. A live action version of the movie, Aladdin (2019) will be released in 2019. Plot Jafar, Grand Vizier to the Sultan of the fictional sultanate of Agrabah, attempts to retrieve a magical oil lamp containing a genie from the Cave of Wonders. He has a petty thief enter the cave and retrieve it, but his plan fails. Jafar and his parrot assistant, Iago, realize that a "Diamond in the Rough" can enter the cave. Meanwhile, Jasmine, the Sultan's daughter, frustrated with her life in the palace, flees to Agrabah's marketplace. There she meets street rat Aladdin and his monkey pet, Abu, and the two begin to form a friendship. After Jafar has Aladdin captured, Jasmine orders his release but Jafar tricks her into thinking Aladdin was sentenced to death. Disguised as an elderly man, Jafar releases Aladdin and Abu from the dungeon and leads them to the Cave of Wonders, promising a reward in return for retrieving the lamp. The cave allows them to enter but instructs them to touch nothing but the lamp. Aladdin and Abu find a magic carpet. Aladdin obtains the lamp but Abu's attempt to steal a gem fails and causes the cave to collapse. The carpet flies them back to the entrance and Aladdin delivers the lamp to Jafar, who attempts to kill him. Abu thwarts Jafar and steals back the lamp as he, the carpet, and Aladdin fall back into the cave before it closes. In the collapsed cave, Aladdin rubs the lamp, inadvertently unleashing the Genie, who reveals he will grant Aladdin three wishes with the exception of murder, romance, revival of the dead or additional wishes. Aladdin tricks the genie into magically freeing himself, Abu, and the carpet from the cave without actually using a wish; thereafter, the Genie states that Aladdin will not receive anymore magic help unless he explicitly states "I wish". While contemplating his wishes, the Genie admits he would wish for freedom, since he is a prisoner to his lamp. Aladdin promises to free the Genie as his last wish. Aladdin decides to use his first wish to become a prince in order to be legally able to court Jasmine. Meanwhile, Jafar attempts to mind control the Sultan into arranging a marriage between himself and Jasmine in order to become Sultan himself. Before he is able to succeed, Aladdin appears and parades into the Sultan's palace as "Prince Ali of Ababwa". Sultan is impressed but Jasmine declines Ali as a suitor. Despite the Genie's suggestion that Aladdin to tell the princess his real identity, Aladdin keeps up his act as a prince and takes Jasmine around the world on the magic carpet. Jasmine suspects that Ali is actually the man she met in the marketplace; during the trip, she tricks Aladdin into revealing it and demands the truth from him. Aladdin fabricates a story that he sometimes dresses as a commoner to escape palace life. The couple kisses as Aladdin returns her home. Afterwards, Jafar captures Aladdin and attempts to drown him before making a second attempt to arrange a marriage. The Genie rescues Aladdin as his second wish; Aladdin returns to the palace and exposes Jafar's plot. Jafar flees after noticing the lamp in Aladdin's possession, realizing who Aladdin is. Aladdin has second thoughts about freeing the Genie, believing that without him he is "just Aladdin". Iago steals the lamp and brings it to Jafar. Jafar becomes the Genie's new master, using his first two wishes to usurp the Sultan's throne and become the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Using his new powers, Jafar enslaves Jasmine and the Sultan, exposes Aladdin as a street rat, then exiles him and Abu to a frozen wasteland. Aladdin and Abu use the magic carpet to return to the palace, where Aladdin sneaks in to recapture the lamp. Jafar proposes using his third wish to have Jasmine fall in love with him. The Genie protests that he cannot grant that wish, but Jasmine feigns interest in Jafar, allowing Aladdin to attempt to grab the lamp. Aladdin gets caught and battles Jafar, who transforms himself into an enormous cobra and traps Aladdin. Jafar says that he is "the most powerful being on Earth", but Aladdin argues that the Genie is more powerful. Faced with this realization, Jafar uses his final wish to become a genie himself. However, he then discovers that genies are not free entities as he is sucked into a lamp of his own, dragging Iago with him. The Genie sends Jafar's lamp flying into the Cave of Wonders and urges Aladdin that he should use his third wish to regain his princeship, warning Aladdin that he has never seen a woman like Jasmine. Realizing that he cannot keep pretending to be something he is not, Aladdin decides to keep his promise and wish for the Genie's freedom. After discovering Jasmine's love for Aladdin, the Sultan changes the law to allow her to marry whomever she deems worthy. The newly free Genie leaves to explore the world while Aladdin and Jasmine celebrate their engagement. Cast *Scott Weinger as Aladdin, a poor, but kind-hearted Agrabah thief. Weinger sent in a homemade audition tape with his mother playing the Genie, and after several call backs he found six months later that he had the part. Aladdin's supervising animator was by Glen Keane. Brad Kane provides Aladdin's singing voice. *Robin Williams as The Genie, a comedic genie, with nigh omnipotent power that can only be exercised when his master wishes it. Clements and Musker wrote the part of the Genie for Williams, and, when met with resistance, created a reel of Williams' stand-up to animation of the Genie. When Williams watched the video, he "laughed his ass off" and agreed to do the project. The Genie's supervising animator was Eric Goldberg. Williams' appearance in Aladdin (despite his appearance along with Christian Slater and Tim Curry in the early 1992 animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest) marks the beginning of a transition in animated film to celebrity voice actors, rather than specifically trained voice actors in animated film. The directors asked Goldberg to animate a genie over one of Williams' old stand-up comedy routines to pitch the idea to the actor. The resulting test, where Williams talking about schizophrenia was translated into Genie growing another head to argue with himself, made Williams laugh and convinced him to sign for the role. Williams provided many celebrity impressions during recording sessions, which were re-adapted into the fabric of the character. These included Ed Sullivan, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, William F. Buckley, Peter Lorre, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arsenio Hall. Williams also voices the Peddler, a mysterious merchant who appears at the beginning of the film. After promoting useless goods to the audience, he reveals the magic lamp and begins the story of Aladdin. Bruce Adler supplies his singing voice. The scene was completely unscripted — the production left Williams a table with props covered with a sheet and asked him to pull out objects without looking at them and describe them in-character. The double role originally led to the merchant revealing to be the Genie disguised, but that idea was later dropped. In October 2015, Clements and Musker revealed that the Merchant is actually the Genie's human form. The merchant would later reappear in the ending of Aladdin and the King of Thieves. *Jonathan Freeman as Jafar, the power-hungry Grand Vizier of Agrabah. Jafar was originally envisioned as an irritable character, but the directors decided that a calm villain would be scarier. Freeman was the first actor cast and spent one year and nine months recording his dialogue. He later readjusted his voice after Weinger and Larkin were cast as he felt "Jafar had to be seen as a real threat to Aladdin and Jasmine". Jafar's supervising animator was Andreas Deja, who tried to incorporate Freeman's facial expressions and gesturing into the character, while Jafar's beggar and snake forms are animated by Kathy Zielinski. *Linda Larkin as Princess Jasmine: The princess of Agrabah, who is tired of life in the royal palace. Larkin was chosen nine months after her audition, and had to adjust her pitch to reach the voice the filmmakers were looking for the character. Jasmine's supervising animator was Mark Henn. Lea Salonga provides Jasmine's singing voice. *Frank Welker as Abu, Aladdin's kleptomaniac pet monkey with a high-pitched voice. The animators filmed monkeys at the San Francisco Zoo to study their movements for Abu's character. In the three years it took to record the film, Welker did not meet Weinger or Williams. Welker also voices Jasmine's tiger Rajah and the Cave of Wonders. Duncan Marjoribanks was the supervising animator for Abu, while Rajah was animated by Aaron Blaise. *Gilbert Gottfried as Iago, Jafar's sarcastic, foul-mouthed parrot assistant. Iago's supervising animator Will Finn tried to incorporate some aspects of Gottfried's appearance into Iago's design, especially his semi-closed eyes and the always-appearing teeth. *Douglas Seale as The Sultan, the pompous, but kind ruler of Agrabah, who desperately tries to find a suitor for his daughter Jasmine. Some aspects of the character were inspired by the Wizard of Oz, to create a bumbling authority figure. The Sultan's supervising animator was David Pruiksma. *Jim Cummings as Razoul, the Captain of the Guard. He was named after layout supervisor Rasoul Azadani. He and the other guards were animated by Phil Young and Chris Wahl. *The Magic Carpet is a sentient carpet who is able to fly. Animator Randy Cartwright described working on the Carpet as challenging, since it is only a rectangular shape, who expresses himself through pantomime – "It's sort of like acting by origami". Cartwright kept folding a piece of cloth while animating to see how to position the Carpet. After the character animation was done, the carpet's surface design was applied digitally. *Charlie Adler as Gazeem: A thief that Jafar sends into the Cave of Wonders at the beginning of the film but is trapped inside for being unworthy. Gazeem was animated by T. Daniel Hofstedt. *Corey Burton as Prince Achmed, a snobbish prince who is rejected by Princess Jasmine as her suitor. 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